I established the North East Emerging Artist Award, working with Seaton Delaval Hall's General Manager Emma Thomas, as an annual award for final year students or early career artists. The award provides mentoring and opportunities for artists to develop site specific work in an historic context. Each spring eight artists are shortlisted and funded to make a design proposal for an exhibition in the historic stables. Three proposals are then selected through a public vote, and then I support and mentor the artists to realise their project as an installation for the following year.
Selected artists projects in the first year included a joint project by Chantal Herbert and Dami Fawehinmi who produced a soundscape of interviews exploring the experience of black people in the North East when visiting historic properties, accompanied by large scale portrait photographs of the people at Seaton Delaval Hall. Edmond Salter created a playful and interactive Vanburgh Croquet installation where people could encounter largescale models inspired by the architects work. Dancer and choreographer Maria Vincentelli directed and performed a filmed dance piece where she embodied previous inhabitants of the Hall from the Delaval family through to the bats.
We have shaped the award to be open to artists from all artforms including music, sound, theatre, film, fashion, literature and design as well as fine art and to be aimed at supporting artists in or from the North East who are in the final year of their undergraduate degree, studying for a masters’ degree, who have graduated in the last three years or equivalent. The award’s aim is to showcase site-specific contemporary art in a historic context and to encourage emerging artists to develop proposals at the hall.
